


Δ art over nature

by Kingmaker (smooshkin)



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games)
Genre: Augmentation, Blood, Gen, Gore, Surgery, detailed surgical descriptions, hemophilia if you squint, someone gets augged
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 17:29:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18348344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smooshkin/pseuds/Kingmaker
Summary: An augmentation surgeon from India REALLY likes his job.





	Δ art over nature

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a surgeon but I do my best to provide an aesthetic experience for anyone that wants to read a depiction of an augging. This was originally written for an old RP partner for a Deus Ex plot set in India but has since been edited and rewritten in places so anyone can enjoy it and the work doesn't go to waste. ^^  
> lmk if you see any typos.

Dr. Mandal watches his client's face and is pleasantly surprised to see he wasn't immediately scared away. Even asked to explain. 

This causes the nerves in his own synthetic spine to electrify. His second-favourite part. His head wobbles approvingly.

"Yes- yes! Oh- of course, of course...Ah--" Mandal attacked his desk right after pausing in a hover above it- looking for something. 

He shuffled papers excitedly, moved his pet beetles in their tanks carefully and yanked out a large manilla envelope to bring it close, sifting through the contents. 

"I have- a spine..for you- somewhere. Here! Some of my finest work- look." He turns a mess of printed diagrams around. It was an absolute abstraction, but it was still clearly a spine- albiet surrounded by formulas and configurations. An artful mess.

"Immediate return ballistic and impact-feedback sensors will lock the spine in place, keeping your nervous system intact in the case of impending breakage. Your spine will never be the cause of your pain again-! It corrects itself when it detects anomaly. It will interface directly with your system, you'll feel pressure, pain- albiet brief!- once I connect it to your natural tissue."  
He had, at some point, turned his diagrams back around, setting them on his desk and was going through them excitably. 

"Then, the arms mount easily to the synthetic clavicle, blade and manubrium. They'll receive feedback from the spine as a result and- oh, my god, you're going to be overwhelmed it's.. Beautiful.." He finally settled down from what was obviously a rush.

He bit his lip. "The first time you move your hand and it feels as if nothing has changed." He looks up to grin at the other. "That is art over nature, sir. Like Darwin used to say!"

His expression levels suddenly and he gives him a reasonably less excited look. "Oh. But- if you're not prepared, it would be reasonable to postpone." He tilts his head. "I would understand." Since when is it up to the doctor to be understanding, was that not the company's job?

"But I'm sure you're eager to wake up and not feel the pain." He grins. "Do you trust me?" He asks, hands clasped in front of him. 

He extends his manufactured hand in a western shake. 

"I'm very good at what I do."

To his delight, the client agrees with a nod and extends his hand. Yeah, he'd say. He was eager to wake up painless again. It had been too long.

'You've likely got more sense than those street surgeons in the back alleys.' he added.

Dr. Mandal beams, giving the hand a terse shake. He'd back away, bringing his hands up in the local standard namaste. 

"I have much... much more than just sense, sir." He inclined his head deeply with a grin. A promise. 

The Doctor would have left the room- and left instructions. It seemed that medical staff was waiting in the wings already, as it didn't take long before he was wheeled into one of LTech's argent silver operating rooms, hopefully drowsy. The ceilings were done in the same geometric pattern of the tiled floors.

Mandal was already leaning over him, being pleasant, as he covered his hair, but let the mask hang from his neck.

Curiously, he had no medical gloves on, his own cybernetics sterilized earlier. He reached out to carefully touch the drowsy man's chin and give it a reassuring squeeze and subtle wiggle. "Do you like music, sir? Tell me. What makes your soul sing, hm?" He asks, fully expecting that he wouldn't ever receive an answer.

He glances at the anaesthesiologist, who nods once at his workstation, monitoring vitals and ether levels.

"Good boy." He'd wet his lips as he looks back down to be sure his canvas is soundly asleep. A nod at his medical staff and they'd turn him over, hands an orchestra, playing at the medical machinery, the tools and his body. The man would sleep. Mandal would watch over him. His work was just beginning.

He was wired safely. Mandal enjoyed knowing that as the hours went by, the man would need less and less of it all to survive. And it would be harder to keep him asleep. He'd done it hundreds of times. He knew.

He began first with marking his incisions- soon to be excisions. As he did, he mentally prepared for how long he'd be here, plying flesh, clipping and un-clipping nerves, molding tissue. 

The breadth of this procedure would leave this room looking like a crime scene. Throughout the day and into the night, they'd have to clean and wipe the floor. The trays. The table. You couldn't carry an excised spine without getting something on the floor. 

He injects something near it, careful.

He parts his lips and breathes as he takes a small scalpel. He'd need this one to be precise. He was acutely aware of the raise of eyebrows on the other side of the table as he began to split down the middle of the trishula tattoo on his client's back, his other hand splayed gently on a shoulder blade. 

He tried to find meaning in the moment but every conclusion he fell onto was electric. Exciting. Natural. Evolution. Red, glistening evolution.

He'd procured a larger scalpel and he swallows, lifting his chin while leaning in. His synthetic muscles tense and he's sliding it deeper until the give stops. Less pressure. He drags down, exhaling, watching the claret blood bead as he split him and split him and split him. Oh, but it didn't- couldn't stop there.

The door opens behind him. He can hear it. A quiet beep from the air conditioning only briefly pulling him from deepest concentration.

He'd have to disconnect everything. There was no sense in reconnecting ribs to a synthetic spine when you could just remove those too.

"Rujula, play the track, please." He says quietly- trance-like, eyes telling his brain they were unfocusing and yet fed crystal-clear feedback.

Soon, century-old classical music warbled from the end of the room as he dips his hands into the growing incision. They bloodied easily. The pearl and gold of his own augs streaming with crimson. It netted and pulsed, gathering in the occluded spaces.

He found the first hernia- lips pulling into a soft smirk unseen- under his mask. Here he was. Art triumphs over nature. Fate thought fit to test him today and he laughed in it's face. 

He was too clever. Humanity too clever. These were near their end and his patient would be able to revel in their shared victory. Art wins. Humanity wins. He won.

Mandal turns away from his work briefly-- reaches up with a bloody hand to pull his mask down long enough to lick a finger, easily disguised. He dips his hands into a shallow bowl, the blood coating his fingers and hands sloughing off, using his wrist to wipe his forehead. He'd replace the mask and return.  
He'd begin the arduous process of shaving tissue from the ribs. This was going to take everyone's hands very soon, with the help of LTech robotics. A synthetic spine hung in artificial claws nearby, made to bolt at the hips. Their client wished to keep his legs and the Doctor would grant him this. 

It would be much better to allow his body some time to heal. See how his project evolved. Plus, it would give him something to do another day when he finally convinced him to go the rest of the way.

Oh, and he needed time to design proper legs for him anyway. He wouldn't stand for mismatchery. Oh, but he had the perfect spine- the perfect arms. It was destiny. Beautiful, glowing, expertly woven destiny. 

"Ah- Lord Shiva." He whispered into his work. He was deep into the body now. Everyone knew this where things began to get far more dangerous. Mandal began his acute work of severing the column above and below, rendering his patient completely paralyzed until those connections could be unsevered. Organs would need to be handled constantly, suspended by hands and machines until allowed to settle again. 

Dr. Mandal took a sharp breath as he sliced into a disk under the nape, atomically precise. His eyes focused, quite literally, with a narrower field of view on his hands. "Very good." He praised himself.  
He repeated his work below after carefully disconnecting muscle sheets and fibers from their anchors, the tip of his tongue pressing insistently at the back of his teeth as he measured his own movements with aggressive exactness. 

Hours were eaten by the time the operating table resembled a marrionette slaughterhouse of robotic arms, bodies and blood. One of the surgeons pulled their arms out of the body as his organs were cradled in carbon fiber ribs and his muscles were sewn back together, reconnected, revived and re-taut. He was bleeding less, blood artificially coagulated to prevent exsanguination. 

Mandal was carefully configuring the mounts for the arms. For now, they were pushing on the natural joints of the shoulders and he briefly considered waiting to remove the arms first. 

No, he wouldn't be able to wait. He'd want to install those immediately.

"Left first." He'd say. Everyone knew the drill. Or, in this case, the saw. The spine was covered with piles of protective gauze and he was turned over. A process that took some time, so as to not damage anything. Jostle anything. They needed the help of the robots. The radio changed songs as they began, but it couldn't be heard over the sound of bone severing. Blood sprayed, but only slightly, the coagulant doing its job.  
Rujula, the female surgeon, would take the excised limb away while Mandal moved around to disconnect the remainder of the joint and it's contingent parts. Almost messy business, but he knew precisely what to do. How to mount it. He enjoyed the way he could make these connections through the inside of a man's body. Go in one way and out the other. Pull it taut.

"Ahh- perfect." He mumbled by the time the first arm was installed. Interfaces programmed and connections established. The brain sending it signals. Mandal gave the wrist a gentle squeeze to test this and the fingers curled near-imperceptibly. He smiled fondly. A natural response. But better. Artistry.

Skin was sewn back together and it was onto the other arm. The saw whirred again and Rujula somberly retreated with another useless thing for the incinerator as Mandal quickly repeated his earlier work, leaning over the man's chest as he got close to clean the area for installation. The other nurses and surgeons hovered behind him, watching him work.

"I'll be installing the Sentinel from the front." He informed them. It was easier, the locking and unlocking ribs leaving him plenty of room to work his organs around without risk of damaging any tissues trying to reach around the spine again. He already planned this, which is why he re-pieced his back earlier and turned him over.  
The synthetic heart was brought by within the hour as Mandal pulled the chest open, hovering. Severed arteries were spilling blood, split veins; cut pulmonaries. It pooled amongst the organs as they pulsed deathly slow. It was quickly cleaned away when it began to obscure the doctor's work.

He bared his teeth behind his mask as he nestled the Sentinel within. The only indication of his pleasure the crease of his outer eyes.

"Vihaan, watch closely." He ordered and received a quick, "Yes, Doctor."

He re-established the connections one by one, practiced precision making it swift. Art. Arteries. Art. He breathes as it took it's first breath. He allows himself a glance at the natural heart. I win again. He thought to himself. Art over nature.

He had to watch it for a moment, there amidst the gore. Art. The heart. Art. It began to work, serenely. It wasn't yet at full function of course- or their work would be undone before their hands. In order for it to interface with his nervous system, it'd need a connection to the brain, otherwise it was working on mechanics alone. He'd do that while working on his e--

"Doctor--" Came Vihaan's troubled intonation and his attention quickly snapped over to the anaesthesiologist who stood up at his workstation.

Mandal's attention had whipped back to their patient who- to his terror, stirred. 

He hits himself in the jaw in his panic- just a split second and he's holding a hand out, snapping his fingers. "Needle! The needle- Vihaan--!" The room was a blur of motion- of eyes. Every surgeon in the room rushing to the sides of the table.

"Why didn't you--!" Mandal snarled a half-thought as he quickly injected his patient with a dosage to prevent the impending madness. Incipient trauma. 

It'd be a bad memory staining such beauty with a black spot.

He's looking wide-eyed into the man's eyes, looking for them to go blank. 

When they finally stabilize him again, Mandal swirls away and raises a hand to Rujula, as if he might have wanted to hit her. "And this is why you quickly replace the intravenous after the arms are replaced! He almost woke up." He says, already turning back to the table and continuing his work. 

His eyes flicker, paranoid, up to the man's soundly sleeping. He didn't want him to ever fear it. Taste something bitter whenever he thought of this. His procedure.

The next several hours had been uneventful. He closed the new wounds, careful to keep them artfully symmetric. They sealed his spine. Sealed in the sentinel.

Carefully, they even replaced his eyes. Even Mandal always had a little bit of trouble with the first half of that. The music helped him stay elsewhere, moving through his muscle memory- micro-precise.

He stayed there from start to finish. Hadn't slept. Rujula had gone home and was replaced by another surgeon. Vihaan stayed, but looked exhausted by the end.  
The sun was beginning to come up on India again. The country didn't sleep.

Soon, it was finished.

...

Mandal was curled up in an armchair next to the man's bed, a nurse having just left after injecting something for the pain. He would stir at her footsteps.

"He'll be awake soon- it's wearing off." He hears from the peripherals of his awareness as he comes too. Shit. He'd slept too?

He looks up at his patient. He grins, tired.

He'd wait like this until he awoke. When the other did wake up, he'd be assaulted with; 

"Hello! It is... 4:56 AM. On Thursday!" Mandal would speak carefully, deliberately soothing from his perch over their head. He was leaning forward in his seat- eyes completely alight, despite the subtle dark under them; Signalling his lack of sleep for a great long while.

"You're going to be delighted..." He promises.


End file.
